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Video Games and Choice

Uploaded by: kirithem
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http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22456
Episode Five in my series of video "lectures," made in association with Gamasutra. Co-written with James Portnow, cofounder of Divide By Zero Games. This episode marks our first entry of Game Design Corner, where we look specifically at elements of game design.
Loosely modeled after Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's Zero Punctuation reviews.
I can be reached at floydo_animation at yahoo dot com.
James can be reached at jportnow at gmail dot com.
Like the intro/outro music? Download the full tracks here!
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http://www.carbohydrom.net/music/CarboHydroM_-_Penguin_Cap.mp3
Illusional Hop
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http://www.baddudesmusic.com/

Tags for this video: video games choice presentation lecture daniel floyd zero punctuation gamasutra james portnow game design problem extra credit

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I always thought ... ( 4 months ago by MuteJordan)

I always thought about this since about the beginning of this year. Why in most adventure games you HAVE to go that way instead of another. Where as in free roam you can do whatever because it's your choice.

i'm not quite sure ... ( 4 months ago by Budda2k62k6)

i'm not quite sure now, if Fallout 3 was givingme choices on how to solve a problem, or just presented me problems to solve.
anyways... FO3 is great :D

haha you are ... ( 4 months ago by Shadowgrip55)

haha you are absolutely hilarious and your a genuis great job!

I love your videos. ... ( 3 months ago by myusername0wns)

I love your videos. They are one of the best things I have watched on youtube. Your points are interesting and backed with example yet presented in a way that makes your videos enjoyable to watch.
Make MOAR :D

A lot of what we'd ... ( 3 months ago by RyuseiKitadama)

A lot of what we'd call choice by offering seemingly incomparable options, even when given in a multitude of interdependent ways, eventually ends up being reduced to a problem. The gamer population takes the list of options, exhaustively explores each one, catalogues the results, debates the merits of their approach ad infinitum, and the community comes to relative agreement on which is better. Real incomparable choice, beyond aesthetics, very often just gets discarded as immaterial.

@Xand991 ...pwned ( 2 months ago by wawern)

@Xand991 ...pwned

Gosh, your videos ... ( 2 months ago by ZeldaLink239173)

Gosh, your videos are the most informative I've seen. Thank you. SO MUCH.

@kirithem i love ... ( 2 months ago by JeTSpice)

@kirithem i love the fast voice -- time is precious to me.

An easy way to ... ( 1 month ago by randoguy101)

An easy way to implement choice is simply non-linearity in level design, in which each path leads to the same goal, but they present different problems, and you decide which problem you feel would be better to face.

Bathesday turns out ... ( 1 month ago by Xfacta12482)

Bathesday turns out games with actual choices.
Take Fallout 3 for example. I was basing my decision on my morals more than anything else, because rewards and such were equal in diff. ways.
Along with a great story..Fallout 3 is easily my fav game of all time. Right next 2 Oblivion, for the exact same reasons.

For example, with ... ( 1 month ago by Xfacta12482)

For example, with Fallout 3, there was no right way to play the game. You could be good, you could be evil. You could solve your problems with you gun or through words.
It came down to..really..the kind of person you are. All games should be made like it.

2.51 Thats a ... ( 1 month ago by gv1955)

2.51 Thats a problem, not a choice.
Well for me anyway.

Would you consider ... ( 1 month ago by tubeview96)

Would you consider Pokemon too be a "choice" game, rather than a "problem" game? Now the story, i don't mean that. I mean the fact that you get too pick and choose whatever combination of moves, stats, pokemon, etc. that YOU want. Nobody forces you to beat a water type with a grass type, you can choose use fire type and still win.

@tubeview96 I'd say ... ( 1 month ago by MrNinjenius)

@tubeview96 I'd say they we're choices WITHIN a problem. At the end of the day, the aim will always be to defeat the enemy Pokemon. The game just allows the player multiple ways to solve the "problem".

@MrNinjenius i ... ( 1 month ago by tubeview96)

@MrNinjenius i guess, and the main goal is to beat the elite four and be crowned "pokemon master". Maybe it can be defined as a problem with multiple choices? Sure, that works (restating what he said, what's that?)

@tubeview96 Exactly ... ( 1 month ago by MrNinjenius)

@tubeview96 Exactly. One of the things that isn't really mentioned in the video (as brilliantly informative as it is, mind) is how most of the problems the player come across in video games are actually made up of many choices (like the Pokemon example).

Referring to the ... ( 1 month ago by MrNinjenius)

Referring to the fact there is no apparent "right or wrong" way when making a choice, there will often be times when solving a problem doesn't have a "right or wrong" way either. Sure, the problem itself will only lead to one better outcome, differentiating it from choices, but the process of solving that problem might not necessarily have a "right or wrong" answer. These kinds of choices-within-a-problem" could arguably be called "false choices", but they are choices nonetheless.

Another view on ... ( 1 month ago by potterama)

Another view on game design and decision making: youtube.com/watch?v=ExgTtr_mst8

I have to admit, as ... ( 4 weeks ago by LeonSKennedy828)

I have to admit, as much as I love the game, Bioshock's sense of choice was rather fake, because in the long run you were MUCH better off saving the little sisters because in the long run you got more stuff for it.

This reminds me of ... ( 4 weeks ago by professornuclearbomb)

This reminds me of the FALLOUT games, where choices are choices, not problems. Take the game Fallout 3 with the quest The Power of Atom. Look it up.

One of the most ... ( 3 weeks ago by Uavatar5)

One of the most annoying choices is where they ask you to make a choice that doesn't do anything, such as in Overlord 2 where all the moral choices have very little impact on the game (other than changing the spells slightly). If they want you to choose then you choice should do something.

I'm not sure your ... ( 3 weeks ago by M0man)

I'm not sure your bioshock example was apt, The choice was to take the morally 'Wrong' path despite the benefits, You don't HAVE to harvest the little sisters, I never did, A lot of my friends didn't, But some people did.

These videos are ... ( 2 weeks ago by frag971)

These videos are exactly how games should be made: entertaining and teaches you something new

awesome ^^ ( 4 days ago by nervozaur)

awesome ^^

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Video Games and Choice